Plushies 3 The Fallout
by tampoposensei
Summary: Kakashi And Iruka. Last part to the Plushies trilogy. What happened when Kakashi got home. Just Fluff.


As always Kakashi and Iruka don't, and never will, belong to me. Just as well, there are enough troublesome guys in my life right now.

Plushies 3, The Fall(ing)out.

Sharigan Hatake was pleading, begging. Not something that the genius ninja had ever done before. Not like this.

"Please Iruka, let me in. I'm cold here by myself and I've been cold for such a long time now."

The man he was beseeching didn't answer. He hugged the plushie scarecrow that Hyuga Hanabi had given him closer to his chest and pulled the sheet over his ears. It wasn't that he didn't want to answer, didn't want to invite Kakashi back into the bed that they'd shared for several years. The truth was that he wanted him desperately. But he knew that he still couldn't even look at the copy nin without either flying into a rage or bursting into tears.

"Come on Iruka please, I _need_ you. I haven't held you in four weeks. You're going to forgive me sooner or later so why not make it sooner."

Four pale fingers curled around the frame of the open door between the bedroom and the living room (hadn't that door been closed and locked?), where Kakashi had been sleeping on the couch for the past ten days. It was true, it had been four weeks. Four long weeks.

Of course Iruka had gone without his lover's touch for longer. Kakashi had been away for nearly two months once, he shuddered at the memory. But at no point during those two months had the man been standing naked, and he just knew that he was naked, not twenty feet away. He pulled his head further under the cover, curling his body into a tight ball.

"Go away Kakashi. Just go to sleep."

Kakashi went back to the couch and pulled the itchy wool blanket over his long pale body.

The rumours, of what had become in his mind 'the dolphin incident,' had reached Konoha long before he had. Just how a rumour could travel across three countries faster than any of those countries fastest runner was beyond him. But it had.

There'd been the snickers and penis jokes in the misson room when he'd gone to turn in his report. The classroom door slammed shut in his face. And the way his key didn't fit any of the locks when he got home.

Of course Iruka knew that a locked door couldn't keep Sharigan Hatake out of anywhere that he wanted to be. And Kakashi knew that Iruka knew. But the message it sent was powerful indeed.

So he'd spent his first night home with Genma and Raido. Alas, hearing their night of passion from the next room, when he'd been alone in the snow for two weeks was more than he could stand.

Then his Eternal Rival had taken him in, spouting unhelpful nonsense about the eternal springtime of love and how it was sure to prevail. A few days of that and he was ready to scream. Eventually Gai had at least been able to talk Iruka into letting him back into his own home. And onto the couch. Even Konoha's Green Beast didn't have a forceful enough personality to do more. So that's where he was now, on the couch, listening to Iruka breathing and sighing softly in the next room.

He dressed silently, climbed out of the window, onto the roof, and lay looking at the stars. He was still lonely, under the lonely sky, but somehow loneliness was more appropriate here than just yards from his sweet lover, and less painful.

The sun was quite high in the sky when the copy nin woke. And he was almost relieved to find that Iruka had already gone to school when he climbed back inside their home. He went into the bedroom and lay face down on the bed, inhaling Iruka's sweet scent and torturing himself. Four weeks and no end in sight. Iruka had never been this upset before, never shut him out for this long. Had the stress of being Sharigan Hatake's lover finally become more than he could put up with? Was he using this 'incident' as an excuse to ease him out of his life forever?

Iruka was valiantly trying to teach. Children this age could smell the slightest hint of weakness in a teacher through the pores in their skin and even a teacher they normally loved and respected wasn't completely safe from the more feral side of a preteen's nature. The part that had the cunning of an adult but the amorality of a child, and thought it 'a laugh' to destroy everything and everyone in its path.

But he couldn't keep his focus. He'd tried to forgive Kakashi. He wanted to more than anything, but every time he closed his eyes he saw his lover holding up that damn stupid dolphin, plushy penis flapping for everyone to see and laughing. While everyone laughed with him, while everyone knew that he, stupid gullible Iruka, Kakashi's toy, was the one they were all really laughing at.

To make matters worse Kakashi had disappeared in the night. Right after he'd rejected him again. Was he ok? His father hadn't been able to take rejection and had… No! He was way over reacting.

But the seed of fear had been planted.

Kakashi needed somewhere to go. He couldn't stay at home, the place that had Iruka's mark and scent and touch on every part of it. He needed to go somewhere and sit and read his book and be Hatake Kakashi, so that everyone could see him sitting reading his book and would know that Hatake Kakashi was as cool and unflustered as ever. Even if he wasn't.

Especially _because _he wasn't.

He set off for the bridge. A place people were used to him hanging out. About halfway there he heard a group approaching around a corner. Genma, Raido and someone whose footsteps he didn't know.

"So have you heard the rumours?" An unfamiliar voice.

Kakashi groaned. Oh no. Not this crap again. Weren't they tired of it by now? He stealthed against the wall.

"You mean about Iruka sleeping with his little friend while Kakashi was away?" Genma's voice.

What? Iruka sleeping with someone while he was away. He couldn't have heard right. Kakashi swallowed hard to clear his ears then sharpened his chakra.

A loud snort.

"Well it's true, I saw him. Looked into his bedroom and there he was with his little buddy in his arms."

The small amount of colour in Kakashi's skin behind his mask, drained away. He could feel it, and what little happiness he might still hope to have in this life, flow out of his body and form a puddle around his feet.

He heard Raido laugh. "So you're still peeking in Iruka's window every night hoping to cop a glimpse of his sweet butt sticking out of the sheets again."

A laugh in the unfamiliar voice. With the husky shading of lecherous intent. "Only when Kakashi's not there, there's limits to the risks I'll take to check out even that tight bod."

Kakashi remained invisible, pressed against the wall. This couldn't be happening. Iruka, his Iruka, with someone else! Was that the real reason he was still sleeping on the couch?

When they had gone he walked to the bridge in a daze. He didn't stop but continued to the genin training ground, hopped into the tallest tree, hid in the densest part of it and stared into his book. There could be no pretense at normality today.

Of course he knew who they were talking about. Iruka only had one little buddy, Naruto. Not that he was so little these days, the boy had grown tall and handsome in the past few years. He had always been powerful. Iruka had a track record of falling for tall powerful men.

Kakashi stayed in the tree all night, and all the next morning. Then he remembered that he had to be in the reception committee to meet the Kage of Snow Country. Their new allies had given the people of Konoha a bronze statue to commemorate the alliance. It had created quite a stir when it had been helicoptered in two days before, noisy machines were a rare sight in ninja villages. And it would be unveiled that afternoon. His heart was too sore for him to notice the soreness in his limbs as he unfolded them and went home to change.

As luck would have it Iruka was with the chuunin representatives and he found himself standing next to his (former?) lover. Both looking exceptionally fine in their full dress uniforms.

After pointedly ignoring each other for fifteen minutes Iruka broke down first.

His voice was a hoarse whisper. "You look good, those clothes suit you."

"You too." In truth after four weeks of deprivation the tight fit of the other man's clothes was making him much more uncomfortable than his own.

A familiar blush spread over the teacher's cheeks and across the bridge of his scarred nose. "Where the hell have you been the past two nights anyway? I've been worried."

The copy nin's brain snapped to attention. Worried? Iruka was worried? So maybe it wasn't all over between them. The desperate question escaped before he could hold it back.

"Who were you sleeping with while I was away Iruka, I know you hate me right now but I have to know or I'll go mad. Was it Naruto? Is that why you don't want me anymore?"

Iruka felt the world fall out from under him. Hate Kakashi? Sleep with Naruto? And, oh God, not want Kakashi anymore? It was one impossibility after another.

"What… what are you talking about Kakashi? I haven't been sleeping with anyone."

Kakashi hissed through his mask. "Don't lie to me Iruka, you never have before. I promise I won't hurt you, I couldn't hurt you. I promise I won't hurt anyone."

"But I'm not lying, I…"

"Someone saw you Iruka. I heard him talking to Genma. He said he looked in our window while I was away and saw you sleeping with your little friend."

Iruka's ears had turned red, not a good sign. "Oh. And you thought that meant Naruto? Have you looked at Naruto recently? He is your team mate after all, he's nearly as tall as you are."

Kakashi's voice was uncharacteristically quiet and even less characteristically sad. "I know, he's powerful too, more powerful than I am in lots of ways."

Iruka whole face had turned red, an even worse sign. "You think I'm some kind of groupie who takes up with the most powerful man he can find?"

His breaths were coming long and hard, a very very bad sign.

Kakashi could tell he was skating on the thinnest possible ice, but his momentum carried him forward. "You've always been very fond of Naruto, and he's grown up to be quite good looking, and I've been away so much recently dealing with Snow Country and… "

He was doomed, only their public situation could save him from the full force of Iruka's wrath.

Suddenly the crowd became hushed as the Kages stepped forward, united in sisterhood, to remove the cover from the bronze. Everyone gasped, then stood in stony silence."

"What the hell is that?" Iruka whispered.

The Snow Country leader beamed and read from a small piece of paper. "As described by one of the many fine shinobi who have worked so hard for this day. 'A newborn dolphin pup, still with its umbilical cord, to symbolise the newborn alliance between our two countries. A creature of the water, that breathes air. For when you combine Snow with Fire you get water, and our alliance will ensure that the people of both countries shall continue to breathe the air of freedom.'" She nodded towards where Kakashi was standing.

The copy nin gulped. He couldn't look at the man next to him "That's what I said when she saw your dolphin plushie. My brain was frozen, it was best explanation I could come up with in thirty seconds. I can't believe she actually bought it."

Iruka stared at the bronze replica of his plush toy, anatomically correct, naturally. He giggled, then chortled, then laughed until tears streamed down his face and his lungs ached. The whole crowd laughed with him, then burst into riotous applause.

In the commotion he took Kakashi's hand. "Let's go home, I have something to show you."

Kakashi gave him a wistful look and teleported them straight to their bedroom. Iruka led him over to the bed, slipped his hand under the pillow, pulled out the plushie scarecrow and handed it to him.

Kakashi looked it over. His voice cracked as he spoke. "This is the little buddy you were sleeping with?"

Iruka nodded and swallowed hard. "I was lonely without you."

Kakashi sat on the edge of the bed, his mind reeling, dizzy with hope. "Why is it still here?"

Iruka sat next to him and took back the scarecrow. He brushed its untidy plushy straw hair away from its face and pulled the rim of its hat over one eye. "Because I'm still lonely."

He looked up, his eyes great saucers of sadness.

Kakashi thought hard, using all of his genius, deciding whether he should or should not put an arm around Iruka to comfort him. He decided that he quite definitely should not. "I'm sorry."

He paused. A long pause.

"I'm sorry about the dolphin too."

Another pause.

"I didn't mean to let anyone see it, I was so cold I couldn't think straight. I just wanted to kiss you."

Iruka was staring at him.

"You didn't do it on purpose, to make fun of me?"

This time emotion won out over genius. He wrapped both arms around Iruka, hugging him close. "Oh God no! I told you, I would never ever do anything to make you unhappy."

Iruka gently eased himself away so that he could look at the other man at arm's length.

"So you let everyone see the dolphin with its penis sticking out, even though you promised you wouldn't, because you wanted to kiss me?"

Kakashi nodded.

Iruka looked at him solemnly. "Then perhaps you should kiss me."

Kakashi closed the distance between them, heart pounding like the hooves of a racehorse. Four weeks of frustrated passion were unleashed as lips glued, tongues tangled, they struggled to remove their tight clothing. Why did these dress uniforms have to have so many damn buttons?

Finally, much later, as he lay with his sweet teacher dolphin curled in his arms, Kakashi felt that all was well with the world again. He reached one handed for his discarded jacket and pulled the plushie dolphin from the inside left pocket, the one right over his heart, then propped it on the bedside table next to the scarecrow.

"Kakashi?"

"Mmm."

"What did it say on that stupid statue?"

"The Dolphin."

"That's all? Just The Dolphin?"

"Mmm."

Iruka snuggled a little closer, somehow finding an even tighter fit with the contours of the other man's body.

"So I did get my name on a monument after all."

The Copy Nin smiled. Yes all was well with the world. Now the only thing left to do was to find out who was cruising around looking at Iruka's sweet butt at night.

And castrate him.


End file.
